Juniper Networks beat expectations for the second quarter ended 30 June 2004 posting turnover of $307m versus $165m for the same period last year. On the back of this it has announced a $250m share buy-back programme, prompting a 10 per cent jump yesterday in its share price.

Nortel Networks shares jumped 13 per cent yesterday on news that there was no more bad news from the company. Nortel, which is under investigation by Canadian and US securities regulators, has to update the Ontario Securities Commission every two weeks.

HP and Dell have come over all environmentally conscious in the US this summer, albeit temporarily. Both companies have launched free recycling campaigns: HP's will run until early September, while Dell merely says its offer is available for 'a limited time'.

Sony is set to give its "most detailed" public look into the capabilities of the upcoming PlayStation Portable (PSP) in September, three months ahead of the handheld console's Japanese debut, The Register has learned.

Morse is beefing up its SAP consultancy business with the acquisition of Diagonal for £50.2m in cash and shares. The UK computer reseller's offer has been recommended by the Diagonal board, which last month rejected an approach offering a similar amount from Microgen.

The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn must have formed in radically different ways, according to research conducted at the Los Alamos Laboratory which reveals totally different structures at the cores of the two great planets.

Mexico's attorney general has taken the unusual step of having an "anti-kidnap" chip stuck in his arm and then making the fact public - thereby ensuring that anyone lifting señor Rafael Macedo de la Concha will be certain to remove said limb at their earliest convenience.

Eight media and technology companies will today announce a new 'universal' DRM system designed to protect digital content but still allow consumers the freedom to use purchased material in whatever (legal) ways they choose.

Odeon Cinemas' website is so frustratingly bad that last year accessibility campaigner Matthew Somerville took it upon himself to recode a version of it that worked. The original site only allowed access to people using Internet Explorer and Windows and was in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act.

Korrect is an online dictionary which contains all the translated terms from eight open source Welsh language software developments. Since March last year about 30 open source developers have been working to create a Welsh version of open source desktop applications. The website gives access to an online dictionary of more than 100,000 technical terms. It shows not just the word but also the context it was used in.

With interest rates on the rise again, the term 'low-rate financing' might soon take on a different meaning. Although the Federal Reserve's latest rate hike was relatively minor, public expectations of higher rates are proving a goldmine for captive financing companies such as IBM. Big Blue raised its rate by one point - four times higher than the Fed's rise.

NASA should not close the book on sending manned service missions to Hubble, according to a preliminary report issued yesterday by the US National Research Council (NRC). In a letter (which you can read here) addressed to NASA's top Administrator Sean O'Keefe, the research council said that there are "compelling scientific returns" to be gained by continuing to maintain and upgrade the space telescope, as planned.

Not many people get their faces on stamps - in fact to guarantee it, you have to be a monarch - but this month, the US-born inventor and techno-utopian Buckminster Fuller is being honored by his own Postal Service. 12 July also marks the birthday of the great man, who died in 1983.

Strong memory sales helped push AMD to a solid second quarter, the company reported today. AMD pumped out $1.26bn in revenue and $32m in net income for the period ended 27 June. These figures compare to revenue of $645m and a net loss of $140m in the same quarter a year ago.

Record notebook shipments kept Apple in the black in the last quarter. The company reported a net profit of $61m, before restructuring charges, on revenues of $2.014bn for fiscal Q3, 2004 ended 30 June.

Veritas proved today that its acquisition spree is not done yet, snatching up Invio Software for $35m in cash. Invio's software is already part of Vertias' CommandCentral Service product, which lets administrators monitor hardware usage and related costs. The Invio kit adds extra tools to the Vertias product by letting users set management policies such as making sure an important database always has high-performing storage available. In this context, Veritas' purchase of Invio is another step toward the company's goal of building a broad set of server and storage management products.